


Just a Machine

by Poppies_From_Under_the_Snow



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M, downplayed actual romantic relationships, no prior knowledge of detroit is needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppies_From_Under_the_Snow/pseuds/Poppies_From_Under_the_Snow
Summary: Alfred Jones donates a copy of the newest android model on the market to each of his friends to do with whatever they please to. Ludwig just can't make up his mind on the ethics of it- is it still a machine if it acts, looks, thinks, talks and feels like a human? (Detroit AU (you don't need to know a lot about this game to read this fic))





	Just a Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Alfred does a good job freaking everyone out.

The city of Detroit was bustling and beautiful. Lights of every color sparkled from electronic ads and store windows. Magnificent skyscrapers whisked against the clouds, and there were hundreds of thousands of people were hurrying back and forth between jobs and homes and schools.  
Ludwig had to admit that the United States had some beautiful cities. Detroit, at that specific moment in time struck Ludwig as the most beautiful. The streets and sidewalks were sparkling, practically spotless. The parks were flourishing. And, apparently, it was all thanks to the androids that Detroit was so famously the capital of.  
That was what Alfred had called the meeting about, anyway. Android integration into the everyday lives of the entire world.  
“Hello, Mr. Beilschmidt,” greeted a young woman at the entrance of the main CyberLife institution where the meeting was scheduled. It was pristine in every way. It didn’t have a single blemish, or a single hair out of place. Its eyes gleamed a sky blue, its face perfectly painted in flawless makeup. A single led light glowed in a circle on its temple, glittering into electric blue.  
“Hello,” Ludwig nodded to it.  
“May I take your coat?” Ludwig glanced down at his black coat, already removed, and in his arms. It was heavy with the weight of water from the melted snow.  
“Umm, yes,” the android took it from him, “Danke.” It gave a nod.  
“Your meeting with Mr. Jones will commence on the the seventh floor in the Crystal Room. There will be another android operating the elevator who can guide you further should you need it.” It calmly gestured to the elevator at the end of the long lobby, past the front desks.  
“Oh,” Ludwig glanced at the glass elevator doors, “Thank you.”  
The android watched Ludwig walk to the glass elevator, its blue eyes piercing. Ludwig felt like he could feel them burning holes into the back of his skull.  
He stepped into the glass elevator, happy to be away from the intense female android’s stare, but a little timid with the african-american android who stood in the elevator with the same intense gaze. “Hello, sir. What floor do you need to go to today?” Ludwig swallowed.  
“The seventh floor. I have a meeting with Alfred F. Jones.”  
The android’s expression didn’t change. “Do you have ID?” it asked.  
Ludwig nodded before popping his briefcase open to pull out his wallet, and take out his ID. He showed it to the android.  
The android studied it for a moment before closing its eyes when the LED on its temple briefly flashed yellow. “Thank you, Mr. Beilschmidt.” It pressed a few of the glowing operating buttons of the elevator, and the doors to the elevator slid shut.  
Ludwig felt awkwardness building up in his chest during the elevator ride. He glanced at the male elevator operator, but the android’s gaze was glued forward, his LED glowing a strong blue.  
Ludwig swallowed.  
When the elevator reached the seventh floor, Ludwig could see Yao and Francis at the entrance, going through the same strange ordeal with the blue-eyed female. Ludwig blinked in sympathy for them.  
“Your meeting will commence in the Crystal Room, Mr. Beilschmidt,” said the elevator operator before giving a small bow.  
Ludwig followed the signs to the meeting room. The hallways were quiet. They seemed to stretch on for miles. The light bulbs in the ceiling reflected off of the blue glossy tile. The walls were painted a cool grey. The coldish color scheme made Ludwig feel slightly more at ease.  
There was another android standing at the entrance to the Crystal room. Its LED suddenly spun into yellow when it noticed Ludwig’s presence, but only momentarily. “Hello, Mr. Beilschmidt. Mr. Jones is awaiting you and a few others inside.” The android had asian features, with warm brown eyes, and dark hair. It was short and on the smaller side. It stepped back, and opened the door.  
Ludwig stepped into the ‘Crystal Room’, and looked around. The wall facing the outside was made up of pristine windows, unbroken by seams or rods. The city of Detroit gleamed around them, casting a colorful glow into their meeting room. The other walls were painted a deep blue. The ceiling to the room was shiny and black, interrupted in the center by a retro projector that casted the CyberLife logo onto a pull-down projection sheet.  
“Ludwig!” Alfred leapt from his seat at the head of the table to clap him on the shoulder. “How’ve you been, buddy?”  
Ludwig pursed his lips and exhaled sharply, “Fine, Alfred. And you?”  
“Great! My economy is the best it has been in a looong time!” Ludwig gave a nod and swallowed.  
“I had no idea that your android technology had advanced this far…”  
Alfred smirked, and clapped Ludwig on the shoulder again. “Well, duh. I’ve had the smartest scientists in the world working on them for years.”  
“They’ve always seemed so far out of reach. Kudos to you, Alfred.”  
Alfred chuckled before turning away to greet Francis and Yao, who stepped in after an apparently odd interaction with the android outside.  
Alfred smiled at them, “Yao! Francis! How-”  
Yao turned around with wide eyes, “That was a robot, Alfred? He looked like a person.”  
“Well, that’s sorta the point, Yao.”  
Francis just shook his head, “C’est très étrange…”  
Feliciano suddenly burst in the room behind them, “Dio mio, Ludwig! Save me!” He made a cross over his chest with his hand, “That poor boy looked like he was dead inside.”  
“It was an android, Feli,” said Alfred, shrugging, “He doesn't have feelings, or a soul or anything.”  
The whole android thing seemed to be freaking everyone else out more than it touched Ludwig. “Well,” Yao suddenly debated, “He is intelligent, no matter artificial or-”  
“Excuse me, Yao,” said Ludwig as he pressed his lips into a thin line, “The androids don’t really need personal pronouns.”  
Yao gave him a disgusted look, “He’s alive, Ludwig.”  
Feli hugged Ludwig, pressing his warm body into Ludwig’s side. Ludwig chose to ignore Yao’s comment with flared nostrils and a thumping heart that seemed to Ludwig to be on the opposite side of the argument.

Alfred commenced the meeting once everyone was present. Ludwig sat down next to Feliciano, who seemed afraid of the androids. He constantly wanted contact, and interlocked his own warm fingers with Ludwig’s cold ones under the table. Alfred stood with his arms crossed behind his back.  
“Hello, everyone,” he said with a cocky tone as the screen for the projector rolled down. “I’ve brought you all here today to talk about the existence of androids.” Alfred crossed his arms over his chest as the male asian and white female android models from before stepped forward from where they had been standing against the wall.  
Alfred cleared his throat, “We’ve finally found a way to perfectly create them. They do jobs that humans don’t want to spend time doing-” the screen behind Alfred flickered to life to display a picture of four androids working on a construction project, “Their hands can do jobs that humans hands can’t-” the screen displayed a different picture of an android performing brain surgery on a human patient, “But, possibly the most important thing that they do is…”  
Ludwig felt Feliciano’s fingers curl around his own more tightly. The sickening yellow glow cast across the room from the setting sun made Ludwig uneasy and anxious. He could feel in his gut what Alfred was going to do next.  
Alfred pulled a gun from out of his pocket. The room erupted into chaos. Ludwig tried his best to shove Feliciano’s rolling chair behind his own.  
“Alfred!” came a voice from some accented, but unidentified voice in the room. “Put it away!”  
Alfred glanced down at the gun with a tint of malevolence in his eyes before simply shrugging, and blowing the android at the front of the room away.  
It was so visceral, yet so much more easy to look at. Watery, blue liquid was splattered against the wall, slowly dripping in thin streams. “Oh my god!” came the distressed cry from Yao towards the back of the room.  
Alfred let the gun slip out of his hand onto the floor, where it clattered. There was a soft knock at the door, and Alfred crossed his arms over his chest while raising an eyebrow cockily. “Come in!”  
The same asian android stepped inside with it’s hands clasped behind it’s back. “Mr. Jones sir.” It bowed to Alfred.  
“The most important thing that they can do is be easily replaceable,” Alfred shrugged, “This is the Kiku model. It is the model that you will all be going home with tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 coming soon


End file.
